Monday, May 12, 2008

Excuse me??

Read how Hezbollah's recent attack on the Lebanese government is being played out in Syria. It boggles the mind.

Hezbollah foils US coup bid in Lebanon

Syrian official daily Al-Baath on Sunday said Hezbollah had foiled a US-planned coup to seize control of Lebanon during the deadly gunbattles which rocked the country. "The Americans launched a pre-emptive strike against opposition nationalist forces, starting with the (Hezbollah) resistance, and attempted a Washington-planned coup but were taken aback by the opposition, which restored order in Lebanon," the paper said.

The Lebanese opposition aimed to "remove foreign interference and stop the plots to transform Lebanon... into an Israeli protectorate and new focal point of US links in the region," the ruling party's paper added.

The clashes between supporters of the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition, backed by Syria and Iran, saw opposition forces seize control of west Beirut on Friday before they withdrew on Saturday.

Gunfights were initially focused in the capital but on Sunday spread to the northern city of Tripoli as the opposition handed control of west Beirut back to the army. The fighting was sparked by a government announcement of an investigation into a communications network set up by Hezbollah and its decision to reassign the head of Beirut airport security.

"The recent events in Lebanon showed that the coup (attempt) carried out by the Americans and their men in Lebanon backfired," Al-Baath added.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday that he was opposed to the "internationalisation" of the Lebanon crisis after earlier reaffirming the conflict was an "internal matter."

Lebanon's parliamentary majority accuse Syria, a long-time dominant force in Lebanon, and Iran of blocking all solutions to the political crisis, which has left the country without a president since November.

The opposition in turn accuses Washington and Paris of meddling in Lebanese affairs.


Unh-huh.


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